These old aerial photographs of York deliver a new perspective on the city’s changing landscape. STEPHEN LEWIS reports.

WE all love gawping at aerial photographs. They give us a chance to see familiar streets and neighbourhoods from a new and exhilarating perspective - and also perhaps give us a feeling of freedom, the sense of soaring like a bird.

Aerial photos are especially fascinating when they are old, because then they also let us see how things have changed.

Take our photo today of Hopgrove from the air. It was taken from a balloon on August 8, 1981, and shows the A64 snaking through a quiet landscape of mainly empty fields. The 'small hamlet' of Hopgrove is visible to the left of the photo, as is the bridge over the A64 leading to Stockton On The Forest, and the Hopgrove roundabout itself. This, however, was a relatively modest affair back in 1981. There was still, then, no Monks Cross shopping park, and the roundabout hadn't become the monstrous tangle of roads that we all know today. The scene is remarkably rural and peaceful: it seems to belong to a different age altogether.

The old Layerthorpe Bridge is clearly visible in our photograph of Layerthorpe and Foss Islands Road taken in June 1973, while the 1981 photograph of Leeman Road - taken by then Evening Press chief photographer Jim Brownbill from a helicopter - shows, dominating the left centre of the picture, the 'long sliver of the carriage cleaning building, now nearing completion' (as the 1981 caption put it).

Other photographs show Heworth Green and Layerthorpe in 1983, with the gasometers clearly visible; York District Hospital seen from directly above, also in 1983, in a photograph taken by Jim Brownbill from the basket of a balloon; and a bird's eye view from Stonegate looking across towards St Sampson's Square. Taken in 1973, it shows a wonderful jumble of roofs, with tantalising glimpses into deep, private courtyards.

Our final photograph was also taken from a balloon, in July 1988. Reporter Fergus Kelly and photographer Martin Oates (now the newspaper's picture editor) had been taken up for a balloon excursion. They set off from the grounds of Bootham School, and Martin's picture was taken looking roughly southwards, down the length of the River Ouse, as they hovered somewhere above the Museum Gardens. Ouse and Skeldergate bridges have perhaps never looked so lovely. The spreading ripples being left behind by the boat steaming south down the river towards Ouse Bridge add the perfect final touch.